Hank Fishkind: Budget proposals are similar this year

Attorney General Pam Bondi, left, and Gov. Rick Scott listen to a speaker during a meeting of the Florida Cabinet .

Both the Florida House and Senate have passed their respective budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, and lawmakers from the two chambers are heading for a final budget negotiation over the next 30 days. WMFE's Nicole Creston asked economic analyst Hank Fishkind to break down major portions of the proposed budgets, and what they could mean for Central Florida and the state.

QUESTION:How much overall spending does each chamber call for?

FISHKIND: More than $74 billion, which is about the same as the governor asked for. That is a significant increase over where we've been the last few years.

Q:Big picture: Are the House and Senate budgets more alike than different this time around?

FISHKIND: Yes, they are, which is somewhat surprising. They're very similar in terms of total amounts of money and in terms of the allocation of the money across various programs.

Q:What are we looking at for K-12 education spending this year?

FISHKIND: For the first time in over three years, we have a significant increase - more than a billion dollars being added to education. So that really is the focus of where the legislature wants to spend the money. That brings the level of per-student spending almost all the way back up to 2007 levels - about $6,800 in the House and Senate budgets - restoring most of what was cut during the last few years of the sharp downturn in Florida sales tax revenues.

Q:How does that measure up with the rest of the country?

FISHKIND: It still leaves us below average.

Q:Now, there's been some talk about state workers this year as well - about cutting jobs, about raising wages - what decisions were made there, if any?

FISHKIND: Really big ones. We will have a 3 percent increase in pay for state employees, for the first time in a number of years. Both the House and Senate agree to that. We will reduce, however, the number of state workers by about 3,000 to 114,000 - we have a very, very lean state workforce.